


the best that i can

by softnow



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, dana scully puts up with enough bullshit and deserves to be pampered okay, massage fic, season 7, wherein pampered means a massage and lots of oral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 10:06:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15603957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softnow/pseuds/softnow
Summary: this one's for her.





	the best that i can

**Author's Note:**

> this is for meg, the incomparable megdoesart/msrafterdark, an actual creative goddess in our community who deserves nothing but nice things forever (like scully). inspired by [this drawing](http://msrafterdark.tumblr.com/post/176536528892/msrafterdark-because-with-all-shes-been-through) of hers, which i adore.
> 
> it's straight up comfort/comfort (which is like hurt/comfort, except there is no hurt, only comfort) and plotless smut. i tried for a plot, i really did, but sometimes the plot is just how badly mulder wants to take care of his woman.

She doesn’t ask him to do it. She doesn’t need to. He can see the tension in her shoulders, in the stiff angle of her neck, in the hard line of her brow the minute she gets in the car. Triple autopsy day. Because he asked her to. Because he didn’t trust any other pathologist with this one. Because when has he ever?

So it’s the least he can do, really. The hot bath and dryer-warmed towel, the fresh sheets and the little bottle of lavender oil on her bedside table. The absolute least.

She comes out of the bathroom tub-warmed and humid and he’s waiting for her. He guides her to the bed and she melts into the mattress like molten steel, stiff again before she’s even cooled.

“Roll over,” he says with a hand at her hip. She arches a suspicious eyebrow, but she rolls and nestles her cheek into the pillow anyway, presenting him with the back of her head.

He kneels beside her, careful not to jostle her, and takes a minute to look. Just to look. She’s so small like this, so fragile. All of her armor peeled back and washed off, saving Special Agent Doctor for another day. She’s just a woman now, just Dana. Just Scully. Tired and weary and carrying the weight of three dead bodies, three cracked ribcages, three times as many hours on her feet.

Where does she store her superwoman strength? In her badge? Her gun? The rolled-up ball of pantyhose that fell just outside the hamper? Where does she store her patience, her science?

In there, he thinks, looking at her little silk-covered body. All of it, in there.

Slowly, gently, he reaches out and tests her through her pajamas. He’s always thought of her as a sort of Renaissance sculpture, classic and beautiful and impenetrably strong. She gives life to that thought tonight. Her shoulders are marble, her back an endless slab of granite, so hard and tight he wonders how she even managed to wash her own hair.

Oh, Scully.

He remembers Texas, two years gone. Remembers her face in that motel, drawn and exhausted. _I do it all for you, Mulder._ And what does he do for her in return? Gives her a stack of bodies and a laundry list of reasons to chase him out of her autopsy bay before she’s even made the first y-incision.

Interrupting? Check. Getting in the way? Check. Asking too many damn questions about things that don’t really matter right now, do they, Mulder, when I’m trying to concentrate on sawing through two hundred and eighty pounds of cold, dead muscle, and could you at least try to find me smaller corpses next time, huh? Check on that one, too.

She deserves so much more than what he has to give, but dammit if he isn’t going to try.

He smooths a hand up her spine and fingers the collar of her pajama top. “Can we take these off?”

“Mm,” she says.

Her pants slide off easily, and he spares a moment to drop chaste, dry kisses to the backs of each knee. She tenses but doesn’t kick him away. Her shirt’s a little trickier, all those buttons down the front, but he makes it work, straddling her thighs and sliding his hands beneath her to undo them one by one. He leans over and presses kisses into her damp hair as he works, smiling when he hears a sweet little sigh puff past her lips.

He folds her pajamas and lays them on the spare pillow in case she wants them back when he’s done. He hopes she doesn’t. He hopes she’s so limp and relaxed by then that the only thing she wants is to sleep. He loves marble sculptures, but tonight he wants clay, wants soap, wants Play-Doh and sand and everything fluid, soft, malleable.

He reaches for her, thinks better of it, reaches for the bottle of oil instead.

“Smells good,” she mumbles into the pillow and he smiles. One small victory for the night.

He rubs his oil-slicked palms together to warm them, then places them lightly on her shoulders. She sighs again as he begins to knead.

Jesus. Even her knots have knots. There’s a cord of muscle along the side of her neck as thick and hard as an elevator cable, and when he presses into it, her breath catches, holds.

He freezes. “Okay?”

“Hurts,” she grits, and of course. Of course it fucking hurts. He isn’t a trained masseur. What were you thinking, old Fox old boy? You probably pinched a nerve.

“Sorry. I’m—sorry.”

He moves to get off her, a sick combination of guilt and rejection churning in the pit of his stomach, but she stops him with a quick shake of her head.

“No, s’good. Hurts, but good. Please…keep going.” And she turns her face down into the pillow, straightening her neck for him and folding her hands above her head.

His thumbs resume their motion, pushing pushing pushing in tight, deep circles. She gasps and groans and stiffens beneath him and he fights the urge to stop again, to make sure she’s really alright. This is Scully, he reminds himself. Scully has no problem telling you when you’ve done something wrong. Trust her.

After what feels like an eternity of this, of kneading and pressing and waiting for her to tell him to quit, he feels it. A loosening. She whimpers but it doesn’t sound all bad, so he presses a little harder until the first knot dissolves beneath his fingers. She responds with a moan deeper and richer than anything he’s ever heard during sex, and for one brief moment, he is acutely, stupidly jealous of his own two hands.

“God,” she breathes, her voice muffled by the pillowcase, and a surge of pride floods his system. Maybe he’s not so bad at this after all.

He finishes with her neck and moves out again to her shoulders, digging his fingers into her delts and traps until he feels that same release. She rewards him with another moan and he bends at the waist, roots around in her hair with his nose until he finds her cheek to kiss.

“Still good?”

“Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.”

His oil-slicked palms glide over her arms, pausing to squeeze her biceps, pausing to rub her forearms, before closing around her fingers. He kisses her again. She smells so good, like soap and flowers.

“I should have been doing this for years,” he whispers.

He squeezes her hands and sits up, turning his attention to the hard expanse of her back. Palm up, palm down. Press in.

“You’re so good to me,” he continues, voice low, as he works her lats, drags his thumbs down the insides of her scapulae, reveling in her gasps and sighs. Look how good I am at anatomy, Scully, he thinks. You’ve been such a good teacher.

“Mm.”

An encouragement to keep talking or to keep touching? He takes it as both.

“You work so hard. Doing those autopsies, getting those reports…” He leans down and brushes his mouth against the base of her neck. She shivers. “Putting up with that partner of yours with such panache.”

A laugh rumbles through her and he presses against her sacrum until it turns into a moan. She’s soft and getting softer, liquefying in his hands, and he wills certain parts of his body to do the same.But she’s so damn beautiful beneath him, naked except for her little purple panties, her back slick and glistening with oil. He wants her—of course he wants her; it’s his default setting, wanting her—but this isn’t for him.

He curls his hands around her hips, feeling the sharp bones beneath the skin.

“You should be touched like this all the time.” His palms run up her sides to her armpits, drag back down. “Every day of your life.”

“I’ll remind you,” she says, her voice cottony, drunk.

“You’re so beautiful.” He scoots down and massages the backs of her thighs. “So strong.”

He could do this all night. All day. Quit his job and devote himself to loosening every muscle in Dana Scully’s body forever and ever amen. Maybe he’d finally come close to paying her back for the years of autopsies and car naps and falls and fights and tight squeezes by the time he died.

The tips of his fingers slip beneath the edges of her panties and brush the curves of her ass. He loves this ass. Dreams about it. Craves it. He’s never noticed how much tension she carries here before. It’s hard as stone and for more than just the squats he knows she does three times a week.

“Off?” He lifts the elastic and lets it snap back against her skin gently.

“Mm-kay.”

Shifting over, he drags the scrap of fabric down her legs, pausing to grind the heel of his hand against his fly before straddling her again. Down boy.

But _god_. Just look at her, stretched out like that, open and trusting and _his_. Down boy, where? He is very, very up boy.

This is for her, idiot, he reminds himself as he traces her from thigh to back and down again with his fingertips. For her for her for her.

"Tell me how you feel.” His voice is low, lost somewhere in a gravel pit.

“ _Good_ ,” she sighs, more air than word. She turns her face to the side, nuzzling her cheek into the pillow again, and there’s the ghost of a smile nudging her lips. “Very… _good._ ”

This woman. God, this woman.

He can’t help himself. He bends over again, trails kisses along the length of her spine. The oil is bitter on his lips, but beneath, there is only Scully. She arches a little, encouraging him, but he flattens her down with his palms. Relax, they say. Enjoy.

Her tattoo is a homing beacon, guiding him down down down. He never thought he’d love it, this reminder of the time she sought someone else, but he does.

Don’t take her for granted, the snake says. Don’t waste even a minute.

He traces it with his fingertips, then with his mouth, tongue darting out to sample the marked skin.

I won’t. I won’t I won’t I won’t.

His palms flirt with the curve of her waist, the swell of her hips. Everywhere he touches is soft, supple, relaxed. Almost everywhere, he reminds himself. He’s not done yet.

Sliding lower, he kisses one globe of her perfect ass, then the other, before covering both with his hands and kneading. She stiffens and shifts, her thighs squeezing together. A little groan escapes her parted lips. He pushes harder, really digs in, trying to soothe away her tension and ignore his own, built tight behind his zipper. But when his thumbs graze the place where ass becomes thigh, she moves her hips just a little, an almost imperceptible pop against the mattress, and he begins to suspect an altogether different sort of tension.

Scul- _ly._

Well, he reasons, she’s a woman of science. A believer in the testing of theories. And he has a big one, a very good one, and surely she won’t mind if he tests it, if he traces his fingers around the bottom curve of her ass, over the top of her thigh, down down down to that sweet place in between and then…shit.

He is either really very bad at this or really very good, because Dana Scully is not relaxed. She is not zen or unwound or chilled. She does not have that peaceful easy feeling. No.

Dana Scully is fucking soaked.

He groans and slicks his fingers through her and she groans and lifts her ass and fuck. _Fuuuck._ How long? How long has she lain here, letting him rub her and and pet her and give her soft, placid kisses, all the while making this sweet, sticky puddle on the sheets? The clean sheets. The fresh, clean sheets that he put on just for her.

If this were another night, he might tease her about it, call her a bad girl. She gets off on that sometimes, if the mood is right. But not tonight. Tonight, she hasn’t done a single thing wrong. Tonight, she is very, very _good._

“God, Scully.” He rings her clit with the pad of his middle finger and she whimpers, presses her hips down against the bed.

“Mul—” she starts, but it’s lost to the most wonderful cry as he backtracks and slides that same finger into her, just an inch or so.

“You’re so wet for me.” He kisses the back of her thigh, so close he can smell her. “So fucking wet, Scully, Jesus Christ.”

It’s been months and he’s still awed every time, can still barely believe that he does this to her. That she wants him this bad.

He fingers her for a minute, relishing the slip-slide of her pulling around him, before withdrawing and nudging her legs further apart. She breathes his name in that same half-drunk voice from earlier and he thinks _slow._ The name of the game is _slow._

She’s glistening pink, fat with need as he lowers himself to his stomach between her knees and slides his hands beneath her hips, lifting, cradling. He stares, thinks forget Renaissance sculpture. She’s the whole fucking Louvre. Then he leans in and gifts her with a gentle, open-mouthed kiss.

“Oh,” she sighs above him. Yeah, Scully. Oh.

Her clit is swollen and tight, a shiny bullseye begging for attention. He ignores it for the moment, lapping instead at the creases of her thighs, at her soft outer lips, cleansing her of her moisture before dipping in to taste her at the source.

He’ll never get tired of this. Never. He could do this every day for the next fifty years, and he’d still need more. She tastes better than the best wine, makes sounds sweeter than the best symphony, but the best part is that he knows—he _knows_ —that she likes it. That it makes her feel good. That _he_ , Fox fucking Mulder, makes her feel good.

He pushes his tongue into her as far as he can, curling and flicking and relishing in the way she pulses back against him. Soon, though, she starts to whine, just a little, just low in her throat, and he knows what she wants. He’ll give it to her. He’ll give her the fucking moon, but he’ll start with his tongue on her clit, dancing, circling beneath the hood to get all of it. She moans and arches and it’s good, she’s good, but he can’t suck on her as easily at this angle and he wants to. He really, really wants to.

With one last, deep kiss to those soft, wet lips, he pulls back and pats her on the hip.

“Turn over for me, baby,” he murmurs and he knows he has her—oh, does he have her—when she rolls without complaint. She never lets him get away with that, with baby and honey and sweetheart, but she isn’t complaining tonight and he feels like the king of the world.

She settles onto her back and opens for him like the richest, sweetest flower, and his cock urges him to dive back in, to drink her down until she comes all over him and then make her do it again. But his two remaining brain cells remember _slow_ , remember the way she looked coming out of the morgue, remember that this is for her. For _her._

So he climbs her body and cradles her face in his hand. Her eyes are glassy, the lids heavy, and he loves her like this. The first time he saw her looking at him like this, she sat above him, peeling off her tight green sweater before leaning down to kiss him, and he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. He’s still not positive that he didn’t, that he’s not currently six feet under and living an afterlife he’s done nothing to deserve.

“Hi,” she whispers, and tilts to kiss him, open-mouthed and slow. She tastes like hunger.

Her hands come up to sift through his hair, so gentle he could cry. She pets his sideburns, traces the shell of his ear, scratches the back of his neck, all with those hands. Those soft little hands that have done so much. They’ve sliced through death and delivered life and now, here, they touch him like he’s their single greatest mission, like outlining his jaw and mapping his shoulders are the only things they were created to do.

He shudders, overcome, and she pulls him down tighter, sucks at his tongue, moans and writhes beneath him. He kisses her until he can’t breathe, until he’s dizzy and desperate.

“God, Scully,” he rasps against her neck after he pulls away. “You’re incredible.” He kisses her pulse point. “You’re so pretty.” Her throat. “Smart.” Her collarbones. “Sexy. God, you’re sexy. You drive me wild, you know that? Every single day.”

“You—”

But he doesn’t let her finish, because her gorgeous breasts are _right there_ and her nipples are so hard and he knows the sounds he can get from her if he takes one into his mouth just—like— _that._

“Ah! Mul— _mm_.”

He lavishes attention on each breast with his tongue and hands, massaging them like he massaged her back before dipping lower, lower, leaving kisses down her stomach like breadcrumbs, a trail to find his way back in case he gets lost. It’s likely. Very likely.

He situates himself between her legs once more, stroking her belly with his fingertips, and reintroduces his mouth to her clit. Her back arches from the mattress when he sucks her, pulls at her overheated flesh before releasing, pulling, releasing, pulling.

“Fuck,” she pants, his sailor, his captain. “That’s so— _oh_ —that’s so good.”

He licks her like she’s ice cream, like she’s melting and he needs to catch it all. She thrusts against his face and it’s the same rhythm she uses when she rides him, quick little pulses, and he can’t help himself. He grinds his hips down into the mattress, desperate for relief, because the woman of his dreams is fucking his tongue and her breath is chuffing like a speeding train, and yes yes yes, Scully, come _on._

Her body seizes, every muscle tightening, and he spares a thought for all of the hard work he’s just undone, but it’s worth it when she comes like a Roman candle, arcing and sparking and flooding his mouth. His name rips from her throat and her hands threaten to rip his hair from his head and he works her works her works her until he’s soaked and she’s sobbing and they’re both collapsing into the sheets.

For several long minutes, they just lie there, sucking air in big, greedy lungfuls. He runs his hand over her thigh, her hip, all the parts he can reach, soothing her twitching muscles. Then he nuzzles her tawny curls and follows his breadcrumb-kiss trail back up to her mouth. She’s flushed and sticky with sweat and oil and her own come, and she looks utterly, utterly blissed out. She barely rouses when he brushes his lips over hers.

He grins. He loves this woman so much that he doesn’t even mind—much, doesn’t even mind _much_ —that his groin is heavy and sore, practically pulsing with its own heartbeat. He can take care of it in the shower. Th most important thing right now is that he took care of _her._

Just look at her—her smooth forehead, her softly parted lips, the halo of curls drying around her head. His very own Flaming June.

Carefully, he climbs off of her, palming himself through his jeans and wincing. Soon, buddy. Hang in there.

He draws the blankets over her and is about to reach for the light when her fingers close around his wrist.

“Hey.” She blinks at him with those sleepy, hazy eyes.

“Hi.” He brushes a lock of hair out of her face and grazes her cheek with his thumb.

“Leaving?”

“No, no.” He bends and gives her a quick kiss. “Just gonna take a shower. Go to sleep, baby. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Baby.” She wrinkles her nose. “Don’t call me that.”

Ah. There she is.

“Shh,” he whispers and kisses her again. She returns it half-heartedly, tipping towards sleep.

He flicks off the lamp and is halfway to the bathroom when she speaks again.

“Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

“Next time…” A yawn.

“Next time?”

“Next time’s for you,” she mumbles, and he smiles in the darkness.

“Okay,” he says. Okay, Scully. Okay, baby. Next time.


End file.
